Was John Oliver’s Blistering Donald Trump Attack Too Late?

It was the moment Last Week Tonight with John Oliver fans have been waiting for. The comedian—who until now has largely kept above the Donald Trump fray—focused his energy Sunday night on dismantling the myth of the Republican front-runner. Devoting 21 minutes of his half-hour show to the candidate, Oliver relentlessly dismantled each of Trump’s so-called strengths. But with Super Tuesday now less than 24 hours away, did Oliver defer too long?

Throughout the second season of his show last year, Oliver said he wouldn’t join his fellow late-night hosts in getting sucked into the presidential race. “Because it’s the 2016 elections. And it’s 2015 right now,” he told fellow Daily Show alum Stephen Colbert last October. “So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing I’m supposed to care about.”

Three episodes into Oliver’s 2016 season, he used his platform to take down Trump. This lengthy segment by no means contradicted Oliver’s earlier promise that he “won’t do too much of the daily dramas of the campaign” in Season 3. “Otherwise,” he explained, “you get lost in the general campaign ephemera, where nothing is really happening of any significant consequence.” Devoting 21 minutes to deconstructing the mythos of Trump? Hardly ephemera.

“You can’t claim he doesn’t exist,” Oliver said before Season 3 started. “No matter how hard your mind tries. [But] I’m less interested in what he’s saying than what’s happening underneath.” And that’s exactly what this segment explored, the many mistaken beliefs that shore up the Trump legacy. Oliver wasn’t interested in jabbing at isolated remarks; this was an attack from all sides.

Citing Trump’s famed, thin-skinned feud with the editor of this magazine, Oliver exploded the idea that Trump is tough. He went after Trump’s exaggerated reputation for building things (both businesses and fortunes), and, most alarmingly, zeroed in on his claim that the most effective way to quash terrorism is to go after the families of terrorists. “That,” Oliver stresses, ”is the front-runner for the Republican Party advocating a war crime.”

The Oliver long view is refreshing. While other political comedians have tried to undermine Trump by turning him into a joke, Oliver is most effective because he takes the threat of Trump seriously. Last summer Tina Feysaid Trump’s run would be “great for comedy,” and while Oliver’s 21 minutes of Trump has its share of jokes, his incisive attack makes something very clear. With Super Tuesday looming tomorrow and the threat of Trump stronger than ever, isn’t it time we all stopped laughing?